Sonic_Tea Fic: Apocatastasis (3/5?)
Title: Apocatastasis (3/5?)
Author:
intrikate88
Disclaimer: I tried to seduce RTD and get him to give me Doctor Who rights, but he's not into women, and I tried with Joss for ownership of Firefly, and his wife didn't like that, and Joss said it would only bring me heartache anyway, so as it stands now, I own nothing.
Spoilers: "Doomsday" for Doctor Who, and possibly "Lazarus Experiment" if I really get plotty and ambitious. Post "Objects in Space", pre/during-BDM for Fireflyverse.
Rating: PG? There's nothing really heavy, but just to be safe.
Prompt: Two prompts! 1) Ten is intrigued. Inara is suspicious. There is banter. And eye sex. 2) "You don't want to wait until it's too late."
Notes/Warnings: One traveler (that strokes bits of his ship) is missing his companion, while one Companion is missing traveling. Then things begin to explode, several people are taken hostage, the Doctor is mistaken for another doctor, and a good deal of fun suspense is had by all, as the Operative tries his hardest to get to one little girl, River Tam.
In case you're wondering about the title, dictionary.com defines it as: the state of being restored or reestablished; restitution.
Beta'd by the fantastic
goldy_dollar. Written for the
sonic_tea ficathon.
Updated on Wednesdays. (Sorry this is a day late! I lost track of time.)
As the two of them returned to the Companion House (having first dispatched Amila towards the other students), they discovered the damage was not so bad as previously supposed. Though the student quarters were mostly destroyed, the damage seemed to be mainly on the surface, revealing scorched but intact support beams. Extinguishing foam had doused all but the most stubborn and tiny of flames, and as Inara and the Doctor walked through the rooms, they found the air was quite cool and breathable.
They were aiming for the dormitories of the Lotus House, where Amila said Lileen were being held by the Operative. It would take them awhile, Inara realized, as the Doctor helped her over the first heap of rubble. They still had a wing, the main building, and then another wing to get through before reaching their destination.
“Where do you come from, Doctor?” Inara asked, as he lifted her over some overturned near-unrecognizable piece of furniture.
“Oh, here and there,” he said vaguely. “I travel around a fair bit, everywhere I can and plenty I’ve been told I can’t. Been everywhere, me.”
“Including the twenty-first century?”
He paused. Inara looked back at him, a smile playing on her lips. “I’m a Companion, Doctor. I had extensive training in… various aspects of being a seamstress, and I’ve studied fashion and design. The suit you’re wearing might have reoccurred in style half a dozen times in the last five centuries but only once with that fabric and dye combination.”
“I might have gotten it from a museum,” the Doctor suggested, grinning at this new game. “Or I might be a costume-maker. I could be anybody.”
“But you’re not any of those things, are you?” The Doctor’s smile was completely infectious, spreading over her face as well and she found herself grinning back at him. “You are a time-traveler!”
“Okay, you’ve got me,” he conceded. “But not actually from the twenty-first century, I was just passing through there a bit lately, a girl- a friend- my- oh, someone I knew lived there. So what’s your story, Miss Serra? You seemed fairly well-traveled yourself, even more than most Companions.”
“It’s acceptable to call me ‘Inara;’ we’re on better terms now,” she allowed. “And yes, I have traveled around. I lived on a transport ship, expanding my client base for a year or so, but circumstances caused me business difficulties.” She used the tone of voice that signified that no further explanation was forthcoming.
Her clients and fellow Companions were of a high enough class to instinctively understand it, and the crew of Serenity (with the exception of Mal) were accustomed to it, which was why it came slightly unexpectedly when the Doctor asked, “Why? What business difficulties were those?”
She started to say something gracefully deflective but then paused; something about him didn’t seem to have the patience for or even fully grasp the notion of small talk “The captain found it difficult to bring me to good clients. He never liked my profession, and he… became more problematic to deal with when my clients needed flexibility of schedule or location.” She paused and then said more quietly, “Sometimes I didn’t argue the point as much as I might have.” Her voice picked up strength again. “It was becoming a dilemma for both of us. I left.”
The Doctor nodded, and hoisted her over something charred. “Nothing lasts forever. Everybody leaves, moves on. Ooh, watch your footing there.”
Inara quickly saved herself from a short but probably knee-jarring plunge into a hole in the floor. They walked in silence a while, which Inara, despite her short acquaintance with the Doctor, could already tell wasn’t his usual state of being. A thoughtful look crossed his face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Inara, anticipating a personal question, said, “And you, Doctor- your friend, from the twenty-first century- is she with you?”
He paused. “No,” he said. “She can’t travel with me. Not anymore; Rose used to but… no, can’t work that way now.”
“Companion training is sadly lacking in the teaching of quantum physics,” Inara admitted with a small smile. She watched the Doctor’s face go dark. “But… there are more reasons than some sort of reversed grandfather paradox, aren’t there?”
“She’s- she’s back where she needs to be,” the Doctor chose to answer. “She’s home- well, sort of home, anyway, and she’s with her family and her friends. Oh, and anyway, Rose is leading a fantastic life, I know it, she doesn’t need me, she never did. Well, except for all those times she was taken hostage. But I got her back just fine.”
Inara carefully navigated; it was like a dance, where she and the Doctor loosely held hands, each leading the other in the safest path through what was left of the floor. “Sometimes,” she said, “the place where one might most seem to belong, with one’s natural surroundings and occupations, is where one feels the least at home.” She paused a moment. “I was trained here, in the Companion House; many of the women here I have known since girlhood. I’m highly regarded in my craft, and might even have been high priestess, before I left. Yet when I think of home, it’s a tiny transport ship and…” She swallowed. “And wonderful people who would be considered dangerous and unsavory by everyone ‘acceptable’ that I know. A grimy ship called Serenity is where I most belong, and I don’t understand it.”
“You saw my ship,” the Doctor said casually. “It’s the TARDIS. She can take you anywhere you want to go, anywhere at all. The TARDIS could even take you to Serenity, if you wanted.”
Inara looked around at the wreckage. “I don’t have anything to keep me here, really,” she said, as if just realizing it. “Nothing save the respectability of being settled, and after traveling for so long, I don’t even really have that. I could go, couldn’t I?”
“Well, what’s stopping you, then, Inara Serra? Seeing the universe, going anywhere and everywhere- what’s stopping you from leaving last week?”
“A time-traveling machine?” She raised an eyebrow.
He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Got one of those, what else?”
She was silent a moment. “Mal. The captain of Serenity. I don’t know if he wants me back.”
“Aw, Inara,” the Doctor responded with a grin, “who wouldn’t want you around?”
“Who, indeed, Miss Serra?” An unfamiliar voice cut into their conversation. It seemed they had reached the end of their journey, and when the looked over to the entrance to the student dorms it was to see a large, dark man exiting, holding a struggling girl in his arms. Upon closer examination, Inara knew her to be Lileen. “In fact, Miss Serra, it was precisely you I wanted around.”
Author:
intrikate88
Disclaimer: I tried to seduce RTD and get him to give me Doctor Who rights, but he's not into women, and I tried with Joss for ownership of Firefly, and his wife didn't like that, and Joss said it would only bring me heartache anyway, so as it stands now, I own nothing.
Spoilers: "Doomsday" for Doctor Who, and possibly "Lazarus Experiment" if I really get plotty and ambitious. Post "Objects in Space", pre/during-BDM for Fireflyverse.
Rating: PG? There's nothing really heavy, but just to be safe.
Prompt: Two prompts! 1) Ten is intrigued. Inara is suspicious. There is banter. And eye sex. 2) "You don't want to wait until it's too late."
Notes/Warnings: One traveler (that strokes bits of his ship) is missing his companion, while one Companion is missing traveling. Then things begin to explode, several people are taken hostage, the Doctor is mistaken for another doctor, and a good deal of fun suspense is had by all, as the Operative tries his hardest to get to one little girl, River Tam.
In case you're wondering about the title, dictionary.com defines it as: the state of being restored or reestablished; restitution.
Beta'd by the fantastic
goldy_dollar. Written for the
sonic_tea ficathon.
Updated on Wednesdays. (Sorry this is a day late! I lost track of time.)
As the two of them returned to the Companion House (having first dispatched Amila towards the other students), they discovered the damage was not so bad as previously supposed. Though the student quarters were mostly destroyed, the damage seemed to be mainly on the surface, revealing scorched but intact support beams. Extinguishing foam had doused all but the most stubborn and tiny of flames, and as Inara and the Doctor walked through the rooms, they found the air was quite cool and breathable.
They were aiming for the dormitories of the Lotus House, where Amila said Lileen were being held by the Operative. It would take them awhile, Inara realized, as the Doctor helped her over the first heap of rubble. They still had a wing, the main building, and then another wing to get through before reaching their destination.
“Where do you come from, Doctor?” Inara asked, as he lifted her over some overturned near-unrecognizable piece of furniture.
“Oh, here and there,” he said vaguely. “I travel around a fair bit, everywhere I can and plenty I’ve been told I can’t. Been everywhere, me.”
“Including the twenty-first century?”
He paused. Inara looked back at him, a smile playing on her lips. “I’m a Companion, Doctor. I had extensive training in… various aspects of being a seamstress, and I’ve studied fashion and design. The suit you’re wearing might have reoccurred in style half a dozen times in the last five centuries but only once with that fabric and dye combination.”
“I might have gotten it from a museum,” the Doctor suggested, grinning at this new game. “Or I might be a costume-maker. I could be anybody.”
“But you’re not any of those things, are you?” The Doctor’s smile was completely infectious, spreading over her face as well and she found herself grinning back at him. “You are a time-traveler!”
“Okay, you’ve got me,” he conceded. “But not actually from the twenty-first century, I was just passing through there a bit lately, a girl- a friend- my- oh, someone I knew lived there. So what’s your story, Miss Serra? You seemed fairly well-traveled yourself, even more than most Companions.”
“It’s acceptable to call me ‘Inara;’ we’re on better terms now,” she allowed. “And yes, I have traveled around. I lived on a transport ship, expanding my client base for a year or so, but circumstances caused me business difficulties.” She used the tone of voice that signified that no further explanation was forthcoming.
Her clients and fellow Companions were of a high enough class to instinctively understand it, and the crew of Serenity (with the exception of Mal) were accustomed to it, which was why it came slightly unexpectedly when the Doctor asked, “Why? What business difficulties were those?”
She started to say something gracefully deflective but then paused; something about him didn’t seem to have the patience for or even fully grasp the notion of small talk “The captain found it difficult to bring me to good clients. He never liked my profession, and he… became more problematic to deal with when my clients needed flexibility of schedule or location.” She paused and then said more quietly, “Sometimes I didn’t argue the point as much as I might have.” Her voice picked up strength again. “It was becoming a dilemma for both of us. I left.”
The Doctor nodded, and hoisted her over something charred. “Nothing lasts forever. Everybody leaves, moves on. Ooh, watch your footing there.”
Inara quickly saved herself from a short but probably knee-jarring plunge into a hole in the floor. They walked in silence a while, which Inara, despite her short acquaintance with the Doctor, could already tell wasn’t his usual state of being. A thoughtful look crossed his face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Inara, anticipating a personal question, said, “And you, Doctor- your friend, from the twenty-first century- is she with you?”
He paused. “No,” he said. “She can’t travel with me. Not anymore; Rose used to but… no, can’t work that way now.”
“Companion training is sadly lacking in the teaching of quantum physics,” Inara admitted with a small smile. She watched the Doctor’s face go dark. “But… there are more reasons than some sort of reversed grandfather paradox, aren’t there?”
“She’s- she’s back where she needs to be,” the Doctor chose to answer. “She’s home- well, sort of home, anyway, and she’s with her family and her friends. Oh, and anyway, Rose is leading a fantastic life, I know it, she doesn’t need me, she never did. Well, except for all those times she was taken hostage. But I got her back just fine.”
Inara carefully navigated; it was like a dance, where she and the Doctor loosely held hands, each leading the other in the safest path through what was left of the floor. “Sometimes,” she said, “the place where one might most seem to belong, with one’s natural surroundings and occupations, is where one feels the least at home.” She paused a moment. “I was trained here, in the Companion House; many of the women here I have known since girlhood. I’m highly regarded in my craft, and might even have been high priestess, before I left. Yet when I think of home, it’s a tiny transport ship and…” She swallowed. “And wonderful people who would be considered dangerous and unsavory by everyone ‘acceptable’ that I know. A grimy ship called Serenity is where I most belong, and I don’t understand it.”
“You saw my ship,” the Doctor said casually. “It’s the TARDIS. She can take you anywhere you want to go, anywhere at all. The TARDIS could even take you to Serenity, if you wanted.”
Inara looked around at the wreckage. “I don’t have anything to keep me here, really,” she said, as if just realizing it. “Nothing save the respectability of being settled, and after traveling for so long, I don’t even really have that. I could go, couldn’t I?”
“Well, what’s stopping you, then, Inara Serra? Seeing the universe, going anywhere and everywhere- what’s stopping you from leaving last week?”
“A time-traveling machine?” She raised an eyebrow.
He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Got one of those, what else?”
She was silent a moment. “Mal. The captain of Serenity. I don’t know if he wants me back.”
“Aw, Inara,” the Doctor responded with a grin, “who wouldn’t want you around?”
“Who, indeed, Miss Serra?” An unfamiliar voice cut into their conversation. It seemed they had reached the end of their journey, and when the looked over to the entrance to the student dorms it was to see a large, dark man exiting, holding a struggling girl in his arms. Upon closer examination, Inara knew her to be Lileen. “In fact, Miss Serra, it was precisely you I wanted around.”